Two Down and Three to the Left
by Chris Magician
Summary: Hinata House has always been home to insanity and beautiful women, but what happens when one increases and the other vanishes? (Now finished, and ready for your reading pleasure!)
1. In Which the sun plays tricks on Keitaro...

Magician's Note and Disclaimer: Arg. Sorry to anybody who saw this the first time I posted it, but it was an accident. Mostly. Let's just leave it at, "I shouldn't have posted it right then, but it's been a really long time since I put anything on FF.N and I was caught up in the moment." In any case, I decided, mostly on a whim, to write this amusing little idea down and see where it went. I've gotten viciously hooked on LH through the manga (Borders hates me; I come in, read the mangas, then leave without buying anything) so I decide to go ahead and jot down some fic action. This first bit is moderately short, but the following sections will, I think, be substantially longer. I love anyone who gives me a nice review, and I shall send everybody a Thank You email if you leave me your address. Enjoy!

                                                **Two Down and Three to the Left**

                                                    A Love Hina Story by MagicianXV

After a long and heated argument, the sun and the moon finally came to an agreement and traded places, the former now rising into the sky from the east, the latter sinking dejectedly into the west. They had the exact same discussion every twelve hours, and one of them always left unhappy. Unbeknownst to the celestial bodies, they were fated to continue on this path for many millions of years, until the sun would finally become so fed up with the routine that it would simply extinguish itself, rendering the moon the victor. For the time being, however, the feud went on without so much as a hitch. The sun, pleased with its success, mustered its courage.

On Earth, the morning came.

                                                                                                *****

Three shafts of warm, energizing light slid tentatively through the blinds on Keitaro Urashima's window, settling quickly on his face. They waited patiently for some reaction.

He delivered none.

One of the shafts, the least tolerant of the three, decided that it wasn't in the mood to cater to some stupid, lazy ronin's sleeping habits and game him a solid whack on the head. The other two giggled furiously and dashed away, followed by their smug sibling. 

The unfortunate Keitaro sat up abruptly, head singing with pain, snapped from his slumber by what, as far as he could tell, could have been caused by only one thing.

"Naru!" He vaulted from his bed, tripped over a tangle of blankets, fell facedown, rolled a few feet, then righted himself. If anyone had been watching, they would have applauded his gymnastic prowess. No one was, so no one did. "Naru! Where are you?"

Keitaro dashed down the steps and screeched around the corner leading into the living room of Hinata House. He had fully expected to find Naru somewhere in this general area, possibly merged with a pool of shadows (it was a widely known fact that demons could do this), but she was nowhere in sight. Grumbling, he abandoned the living room and made his way to the kitchen. There was almost always someone in there, and one of the girls would surely have some information on Naru's whereabouts.

The kitchen was empty.

This was beginning to get unnerving. Judging by the angle of the sun, it was about nine o'clock, and there was no way that _every resident of Hinata House could still be asleep. Shinobu, at the very least, should have been in the kitchen making tea, and Keitaro had never known Motoko to sleep past seven. He reversed course and went back up the stairway and stopped outside Shinobu's door; he reasoned that, even if she had slept in, she'd be less likely to smite him than one of the other girls._

"Shinobu?" he called hesitantly. "Are you awake?"

There was no reply.

"Shinobu!"

Not a sound. The entire house was silent, he suddenly realized.

"Something here is very out of order," he muttered. Deciding to abandon subtlety, Keitaro raised his voice and said, "Shinobu, I'm gonna open the door. I'm saying this to eliminate any possible illusions that I'm doing something perverted or improper, so if you're getting dressed, please let me know right now."

As he had expected, there was no response whatsoever.

"If anyone hits me, I'm suing," Keitaro muttered, and yanked the door open. Delivering a huge shock, the room was...empty. He frowned. "Okay…so maybe everyone went out to breakfast or something. It is Saturday, after all. Or maybe they're taking a bath? No, they'd be making some kind of noise...this stinks. I hate _Twilight Zone stuff." _

Keitaro pulled the door shut and turned to leave, thinking that perhaps he was the victim of some cruel, female-orchestrated prank. He had taken two steps down the hallway when he froze. He remained perfectly still, not even breathing for fear of drowning out the faint sound he _thought he had heard._

"_Sempai...!"_

"Now I know I didn't imagine that," he thought, and pulled Shinobu's door open a second time. The room was still quite vacant. "Shinobu? Call me again if you hear me!"

"_In here, sempai!" Keitaro looked frantically around the room, trying to figure out where the tiny voice could be coming from._

"In where, Shinobu? I don't see..."

"_The closet!__ Open the closet!" Reflecting that he had been having very nice dreams the night before, and that they had been much more fun than his current situation, Keitaro strode over to the closet and flung it open. Shinobu was not inside. Or...was she?_

Keitaro knelt down so his face was level with the closet's bottom shelf. He swallowed uncertainly and felt his heartbeat double.

"Sh—shinobu? Is that—you?" On the shelf, sitting atop of a pile of spare blankets, was a brown kitten with one white paw. It looked far more miserable than any kitten Keitaro could remember seeing, and it nodded unhappily at his question.

"It's me, sempai. Thank you for opening the door." There was no denying that the kitten had spoken; the mouth had moved perfectly in time with the words, and unless Jim Henson was tucked under the pile of blankets, there was no way it could have been a puppet.

"Uh..." Keitaro searched his brain for any kind of programming on what to do when girls spontaneously changed into felines, and could find absolutely nothing. "...No problem. I think. Are you really Shinobu?" The kitten nodded.

"Yes. I don't know...what happened..." The kitten, seeming to have used up the last of its composure, sank down on the blankets and began to cry. Keitaro's overwhelmed brain decided to process this new imagery later, and he did the only thing that felt natural when faced with a distraught fuzzy creature: he picked it up.

Shinobu's sobs caught in her throat and she looked up at Keitaro with wide eyes. He forced a smile, wondering what the hell was going on, and cradled her against his chest.

"Don't cry, Shinobu. I don't really know what's happened to you, but I'll do my best to help." He forced a smile, hoping inwardly that it didn't look too terrifying. Judging from the whimper the tiny kitten issued, coupled with the way she was now pushing herself tightly into the crook of his elbow, he dubbed it a success.

"I just don't know what to do, sempai," she mewed. "I've never been a cat before...what if I'm not allowed to stay at Hinata House? I don't know where else I could go, and..." She trailed off, trembling slightly.

"Hey, it's okay, Shinobu!" Keitaro asserted. "We'll figure this out, I promise. Just...um, just start by telling me why you've suddenly become a cat, all right?"

"I really don't know," she murmured, sniffling. "I went to bed like normal, and...and then..."

"What?" Keitaro inquired. Adding to the list of Things to Think About Later was the bizarre realization that he was actually having a coherent conversation with a cat.

"I think there was someone in the house last night. I remember hearing the front door open, and thinking it was Kitsune."

"That's right," Keitaro recalled, nodding. "She went out to dinner with Seta. Well...he had dinner, I guess. She probably just got hammered. What did you do?"

"I went downstairs," Shinobu continued. "I wanted to see if she had a good time, but...I don't think it was her."

"_I'm at the beginning of a detective novel, and my informant is a kitten," thought Keitaro. "__Interesting." Out loud, he asked, "Who was it?"_

"I don't know. The next thing I remember, I was in the closet you were saying that you weren't doing anything perverted."

"Well at least _somebody heard that," he muttered. Both of them fell silent. _

"Sempai?" She sounded like she was going to cry again. He looked down, and big, brown kitten-eyes blinked at him.

"I...I don't have to eat mice now, do I?"

Magician's Note: I know, that was short and totally unhelpful. But you have to admit, Shinobu makes a pretty cute kitten, don't she? I have a pretty good idea of where this is going, and my nonsensical title will be explained within the next few chapters. I'm feeling pretty confident, so I think I should have a healthy amount of this thing finished soon. Where will it end? Hell if I know, but it should be a fun ride!


	2. In Which Shinobu begins to enjoy life as...

Magician's Note and Disclaimer: Wow. Only eight hours later and I'm sitting down, fully determined to write a second chapter. That's gotta be a record, considering my recent number of writing sprees. (Numbering a grand total of zero.) Anyhow, when we left off this afternoon, Keitaro had awoken from a sound sleep to find Hinata House deserted save for Shinobu, who had mysteriously transformed into a kitten. Where have the girls gone? Why has little Shinobu become a kitten? Hehe. I'll tell you later.

**Two Down and Three to the Left, Part II**

                                                             A Love Hina Story by MagicianXV

After the initial and very unpleasant shock of losing her human body had begun to pass, Shinobu Maehara was discovering some decided benefits of being a kitten. For one thing, she hadn't had to lift a frying pan or don an apron all morning, nor had she picked up a single piece of laundry. Her breakfast had comprised of a saucer of cream, which for some unexplained reason sounded more appetizing than anything else in the kitchen, and she had enjoyed it thoroughly. Reflecting on these items, however, made her realize that the feline lifestyle had yielded one single pro that rose far above the others.

"I'm still pretty confused," Keitaro was saying. Shinobu didn't twitch, as she was presently curled against his stomach and was far more comfortable than she could ever remember being. Being a cat was far from all bad. "Nobody else is here, so they couldn't have done this to you...unless they did it and then left? But that doesn't add up either, since I'm pretty sure none of them are witches. Except maybe Sara..."

"She left on Wednesday though, remember?" Shinobu pointed out, opening her eyes. She looked up and, had she still been able, would have grinned. Keitaro was quite huge now, but she was closer to him than she'd ever expected to get. "She and Seta went on another dig."

"Right, that Chinese tomb, or whatever it was. Huh...I haven't got a clue where to turn, Shinobu. We walked all around the house and the springs, and nobody's here. I really expected to find something when we went in Naru's room, though."

"You did? What?"

"Well...Naru, actually. I figured if I opened her door she'd be inside changing. She'd have knocked me through the wall, but at least we would have found her."

"Oh." Shinobu said nothing and wondered, with more than a little dismay, how many times Keitaro had walked in on Naru. "What do you think we should do, sempai?" Keitaro scratched his head and sighed.

"I don't know. We should be doing _something, but the questions is what. I guess we could go see my aunt, she might have some advice." Shinobu almost objected, as the proposed course of action would require her to give up her seat, but she decided the other girls were more important._

"Okay," she agreed, getting slowly to her feet; it took time to adapt to having four of them. Keitaro waited until she had stepped off his lap, then scooped her gently up from the couch.

"Do you want to walk, or should I carry you?" he inquired, heading out the front door.

"Um...I don't know if I could keep up," Shinobu murmured. That was true, but she was very glad that he couldn't see the blush spreading under her fur as she added, "Maybe you should carry me."

"Okay. Tell me if I'm bouncing you around or anything, all right?"

"I will." Keitaro trotted down the steps and off toward his aunt's small shop. Shinobu looked around constantly as he walked; cats saw the world very differently than humans did, she realized. Her eyes were perfectly tuned for detecting every tiny movement; she could see each individual leaf on every tree they passed, and when she spotted a bird in the road, the urge to chase it was almost overpowering.

This went on for the whole of the short trip, and by the time Keitaro stepped into Haruka's restaurant, Shinobu fully appreciated why cats were so keen on playing with string. Thankfully, there was nothing moving in the room, and she let out a sigh of relief.

"Aunt Haruka?" Keitaro called. "Are you here?" 

There was a muffled call of, "Just a minute," from someplace behind the counter. A few seconds later Haruka emerged, flicking at a lighter. "Good morning, Keitaro. New pet?" She touched the flame to her unlit cigarette, eyes slitting over Shinobu.

"Not exactly," Keitaro replied, dealing Shinobu a nervous glance. She swallowed, wondering how the news would be taken.

"What then? A stray you found?" Haruka put her lighter away and crossed the room, looking with interest at the kitten. "Cute little thing, isn't it? Looks like a runt, though. You might not want to get too attached; they don't live very long sometimes." Shinobu felt a pang at the word 'runt'. She wasn't _that small...was she?_

"It isn't a runt, Aunt Haruka, and it's not a stray either. I actually came to get your advice about it." Keitaro didn't think she was a runt? She couldn't help it—a soft, adoring vibration began to issue from somewhere in Shinobu's chest.

"Well, it seems to like you in any case, it's purring like crazy."

"She is?" Keitaro looked down in surprise, and then grinned. "Wonder what that's all about?" Shinobu was now doubly glad that he couldn't see her blush.

"What's the advice?"

"What? Oh, right. Um...okay, I'll just spit it out. But you have to promise you won't get weird, all right?" Haruka took a long, reflective drag on her cigarette.

"I'm not promising anything, but I'll do my best."

"Good enough. This isn't a kitten, it's Shinobu. I found her locked in her closet this morning, and all the other girls at the inn are missing."

There was a very, very long pause. Haruka's face remained completely expressionless, and she took the longest pull on her cigarette that Shinobu had ever seen anyone manage.

"Really."

"Really," Keitaro said earnestly. Haruka nodded slowly.

"Well then, it looks like you've got a day's work ahead of you, eh?"

"I...guess I do. You haven't seen any of the girls?"

"Not a one."

"They didn't say if they'd be going anywhere?"

"Nope."

"Can I borrow some money?"

"Not a chance."

"Okay. Thanks, Aunt Haruka."

"Not a problem. Good luck, Keitaro. You too, Shinobu."

"Thanks," Keitaro muttered, exiting the store. "I think we'll need it."

                                                                                                *****

"That didn't help much, did it?" Shinobu asked sadly. Keitaro carefully repositioned his arm so she wouldn't fall, and tried to ignore the surge of frustration that was welling up in his stomach.

"No, it didn't. I couldn't even tell if she believed me, could you?" The kitten shook its head.

"Not really. But she thought about it for a while before she said anything, so she must have believed you."

"Or she thinks I'm crackers," Keitaro added. "So now what do we do? There's no point in being the manager of a girls' dormitory if there are no girls in it. And I really doubt my aunt would keep paying me just to sit around and make sure the place doesn't fall down."

"We have to figure out where the others went," Shinobu said. "Maybe there are some clues we missed? Or...doesn't Seta have a cell phone? We could call him and see if he noticed anything strange when he dropped Kitsune off last night." Keitaro felt a surge of excitement overwhelm the frustration.

"Shinobu, you're a genius! That just might work! Come on, let's go see if we can find his number." Trying not to laugh as his passenger began purring again, Keitaro ran the rest of the way back to Hinata House and stopped in front of the telephone. "There's an address book here someplace, that should have Seta's number...here we go." Cradling the phone against his shoulder, Keitaro quickly punched a series of keys, then waited. Shinobu waited tensely on the table, sitting next to the address book.

"Hello?"

"Uh..." Keitaro stumbled; the voice on the phone was a female. "Mr. MacDougal? Seta?"

"No, this is Sara. Who's this?"

"Oh, Sara!" he exclaimed, not sure whether to feel relieved or worried. "This is Keitaro Urashima. Can I talk to your dad?"

"Get lost, you ronin bozo." The line went dead.

"She hung up on me!" Keitaro exclaimed furiously. "That rotten little brat!" He dialed the number a second time and waited as it rang.

"Hello?"

"Sara, let me talk to your dad! This is an emergency!"

"I told you, idiot, get lost! Go drown yourself in the hot spring or something, my dad is way too busy to talk to you!" Again, the line went dead. Keitaro forced himself to breathe deeply, counted to twenty in English, then dialed the number a third time. It rang...and rang...and rang. Finally, after nearly a full minute, Sara picked up again.

"How many times do I have to—"

"Put your dad on the phone or I'm going on the Internet and posting the following information on every message board I can find: your name, your telephone number, and _exactly what is on your butt." There was a decided pause._

"You wouldn't dare."

"I'm in a lousy mood. Try me."

There was another pause.

"Hang on, I'll go get him." Keitaro smiled, then caught a distraught look from Shinobu.

"Don't worry," he said coolly. "I was just fooling. I'd never do anything like that."

"Um...that isn't it...not exactly, I mean. It's just that...sempai, when did you see Sara's...um..." Keitaro turned bright pink, and he was certain that his ears were going to catch fire.

"It isn't what it sounded like, Shinobu!" he said frantically, seeing the look in her brown eyes; the last thing he needed right now was an emotionally-unstable kitten. "It was just an accident. We were in the hot spring a while ago, and...uh...just ask Naru about it, she could tell you better than me. I promise, it was nothing I meant to do."

"Well...okay. If you say so."

"Cross my heart." He gave her what he hoped was a winning smile, then picked the phone up just as Seta's voice echoed over the line.

"Hello, Keitaro?"

"Seta! Boy, am I glad to hear your voice."

"Why, Keitaro, I didn't know you felt that way. It's almost enough to make me want to come home again."

"Er...that is..."

 "Just kidding. What's the problem?"

"...Don't scare me like that. I was just wondering if you noticed anything strange when you dropped Kitsune off last night, Seta. There's been some strange stuff going on today, and Shinobu and I are trying to figure out what it is."

"Last night?" Seta's voice was surprised. "I was nowhere near Hinata House last night Keitaro, how could I be? Sara and I left for the dig we're on two days ago. Kitsune and I rescheduled our date." Keitaro felt like someone had just dumped ice water down his back. He lowered the phone from his ear, barely registering Seta's voice asking if he was still there. He set it on the table and looked down at Shinobu.

"You're sure Kitsune and Seta went out last night?'

"Yeah," Shinobu said, nodding with wide eyes. "Why? What did Seta—oh! Oh...but how—if he was already—"

"I have no idea," Keitaro said. He sank slowly down and leaned against the wall. "Just what the heck is going on around here? First you run into a cat, then everyone but us vanishes, and now there seems to be a faux-Seta running around, taking Kitsune on dates."

"Now that I think about it, she was surprised to see him," Shinobu said softly. "When he picked her up, I mean. And...there was one other thing..."

"What?" Keitaro urged, sitting up straighter. "What was it?"

"When Seta pulled up outside, he didn't crash into anything." Keitaro's face paled.

"Shinobu, I think this situation may be more serious than either of us realized."

Magician's Note: All right! I did it! Sorta...it's technically not today anymore, is it? Ah well, I'm still finished writing it. I'll post this in a little while, after I've gone and done something else and my mind is clear enough to proof read and polish. The plot is definitely thickening a little now though, eh? Who is this fake Seta? When did Keitaro get the balls to blackmail Sara? Will Shinobu ever become human? And has Haruka ever read the Surgeon General's Warning on a package of cigarettes? I doubt it, but everything will be answered before much longer!

...maybe. Mwahaha!


	3. In Which Keitaro makes another phone cal...

Magician's Note and Disclaimer: A funny old thing happened, just now. I realized that, while I've been calling this my disclaimer, I haven't yet disclaimed anything. So, for all intents and purposes, I've been saying I own Love Hina...hehe. That might be fun, actually. I'd be filthy rich. Ah well, here it is—I do _not own Love Hina. I own the plot so far though, especially the Fake Seta and Kitten Shinobu bits. I like those._

Now then, when we last left off (sometime at around 1 AM last night) Keitaro and Shinobu had just returned from an unhelpful visit with Haruka, who had no information on the whereabouts of the other girls. Shinobu had the bright idea of calling Seta, but this yielded another problem—Seta had apparently gone out to dinner with Kitsune the night before, but at the same time, he had been in China on an archeological dig. Mysterious, isn't it? On with the show!

**Two Down and Three to the Left, Part III**

**                                                A Love Hina Story by MagicianXV**

"A Seta who can drive," Keitaro muttered. "Whoever was impersonating him didn't do their homework."

 "But, if the real Seta is in China, then who took Kitsune out to dinner last night?" Shinobu mewed, tail twitching nervously. "What if it was a pervert, or a kidnapper?"

"Whoever it was, I'm betting it's the same person who turned you into a cat," Keitaro observed grimly. "You said you came downstairs when Kitsune got home last night, right?"

"Yes, but—"

"But it wasn't Kitsune. It must have been the fake Seta. Which brings up the question of who the fake Seta is, and more importantly..."

"What he did with Kitsune," Shinobu finished. She stood up and began to pace nervously around the dining room table where she and Keitaro had been sitting. Or, more accurately, she had been sitting _on. "This is scary, sempai...somebody's kidnapped Kitsune, haven't they?"_

"It looks that way," Keitaro said, wishing very hard that Motoko was around. As likely as it was that she would have been blasting him through the roof with a sword technique, her unshakable nerves would have been quite welcome. "I guess we had better go to the police, then. Neither of us is exactly cut out for detective work." Shinobu nodded, and Keitaro went out to get the telephone. 

He dialed the number written on a sheet pinned to the wall (the label read _Emergency Numbers and listed the fire department, police station, and a 24-hour liquor store with delivery service) and waited while it rang. A few seconds later, the ring cut off and his ear was filled with a low, crackly buzzing._

"Um, hello?" Keitaro said hesitantly. "Is this the police station? I need to report a missing person. And an imposter, or...something." The buzzing continued. "Hello? This is an emergency! If I have the wrong number, just tell me!"

"_This isn't a wrong number." For the second time that day, Keitaro felt ice water wash over his back. The voice on the other end was much like the buzz; low and crackly, like the static on a fuzzy TV station._

"It—it isn't? Who is this?"

"_That all depends on your perspective. From my perspective, I am me. From yours, I am someone else entirely." Keitaro's mouth opened and closed a few times before he managed to get anything out._

"Uh—is this the police station?"

"_At one time it was. I don't believe it is anymore, though. There aren't any police here, you see. Just some dogs."_

"D-dogs?" Keitaro stammered. "How—"

"_It suited them, you see. They were very loyal and noble, so being dogs seemed like the best choice. Most of them are gone now, but there are one or two left. Would you like to speak to them?"_

"I...what?"

"_Wait a moment, I'll see if they want to talk." The buzzing faded out. Keitaro was rooted to the floor, and the phone seemed glued to his ear. Who __was that? The voice didn't sound at all natural, almost like he (or she) was speaking through some kind of machine. _

"Sempai?" Keitaro spun around, dropping the phone with a clatter. Shinobu was on the floor by his ankle, looking startled.

"Shinobu! Sorry, you scared me."

"Is everything all right? Did you talk to the police?"

"No...no, not yet." Something in Keitaro's brain was saying very firmly to keep quiet; scaring Shinobu didn't seem like a good decision at the moment, as her day had been stressful enough already. "I just got an operator. He went to get a policeman."

"Oh." The kitten nodded, a sight which fit the day's pattern of the unusual. "Good. I hope they can help."

"Me too, but...let's not get our hopes up, okay, Shinobu? I think we may have to find Kitsune ourselves after all." Shinobu started to ask why, but the buzzing had suddenly begun again and Keitaro waved at her to stay quiet. "Hello?"

"_Neither of the officers is in a speaking mood at the moment. Perhaps you should call back another time."_

"I can't! Just who are you, anyway?" he demanded, unconsciously giving the phone a death grip. "Are you responsible for Kitsune being gone? And what about the other girls? Is that your fault too?"

"_Let's not start pointing fingers, Mr. Urashima. Sufficed to say, I know where Miss Konno and the rest of  your precious ladies are. Whether or not their...situations, are my doing is another matter."_

"Situations?" Keitaro repeated, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. "What are you talking about? What did you do with them? And who _are you?"_

"_I'm not sure, actually. Maybe I'm you. Maybe I really am__ Seta, and he, in reality, is me. __Either way, Mr. Urashima, it won't do any good to get angry about it. We've been having such fun so far that I'd hate to see you spoil it. Ah, I have an idea!" The voice rose suddenly in excitement, but not in such a way that Keitaro was happy about it. The tone suggested that a snake had just spied its next meal, and Keitaro was playing the role of the latter. "__I'll give you a hint. A present, if you will, something to keep the game interesting. Just makes sure you stay on your toes, Mr. Urashima, or things could get messy."_

The line went dead.

                                                                                                *****

Shinobu listened in utter confusion as Keitaro first spoke, then shouted at the person on the phone. Why would he be talking to a policeman like that? From the way he was acting, it sounded like he was having a conversation with the person who had kidnapped Kitsune!

"What did you do with them?" Keitaro was demanding. "And who _are you?" He lapsed into silence, and Shinobu felt her stomach twist as Keitaro's face went pale. A few seconds later, he set the phone on the cradle and turned around._

"Sempai? Are you okay?" Shinobu was now quite ready to become human again; her voice sounded so small and piteous that it embarrassed her.

"I don't know...quick, Shinobu, look around. Do you see anything strange? Has anything changed?"

"Um..." She looked quickly from side to side, then behind her, letting her sensitive cat's eyes scan everything within range. "No. I don't see anything different. Who was that, sempai?"

"I'm not sure," Keitaro said, shaking his head. "Whoever it was though, I may have found our fake Seta."

"Y-you did? Did he kidnap Kitsune?"

"I think so. He didn't really answer any of my questions, but he did say that he'd send us a hint. I should carry you again, Shinobu, in case something bad happens."

"Okay," she said, and allowed him to lift her gently from the floor. "Where should we look for the hint?"

"Beats me. The guy sounded like a philosopher who'd had too much to drink." He left the hallway and walked cautiously past the kitchen, pausing to peek inside. "Nothing weird in there...so far so good."

"Let's try the living room," Shinobu whispered. She wasn't sure why, but it was definitely one of those times when whispering felt completely natural. Keitaro moved slowly away from the kitchen, across the hall, and poked his head around a doorframe.

"Any freaky things in here...? No? Good." He walked around the corner and into the center of the room.

 "Maybe it's hidden in one of the bedrooms?" Shinobu offered. "I got locked in a closet, maybe it's someplace like that."

"It's worth a try," Keitaro said, sounding reluctant. "Did you ever notice though, that a lot of times, the monster is hiding in a closet? As soon as the stupid college student opens the door, something jumps out and rips his face off. That's why everybody in the theater is always shouting 'Don't go in there!'"

"I don't like monster movies," Shinobu murmured. "They give me bad dreams. I never watch them."

"Oh. Well, you don't have to worry anyway. The cat never gets eaten. Only the stupid college student."

"You're not a college student, though, sempai. You're still a ronin."

"Thanks, Shinobu." She flushed hotly under her brown fur.

"Sorry." Keitaro sighed, then started resignedly toward the stairs.

"Guess we'd better get this done," he said doggedly. I'm gonna put you down when we get up to the top, okay? Just wait outside, and if you hear me scream, run away really fast."

"Why would you be screaming?"

"Because something in the closet just ripped my face off."

"Oh." Keitaro trudged up the last few steps and carefully set Shinobu on the hardwood floor. She waited fearfully as he walked to the end of the hall, and flung the door to Su's room open. He leaned inside, paused, then went in completely. There was a faint grating sound (the opening of Su's closet, Shinobu guessed), and Keitaro came back out.

"That room's clear," he announced. "Lemme check my room real quick. Would you be okay checking yours?"

"I think so," she said. "I'll be right back." Moving faster on her four legs than she had yet managed, Shinobu hurried down the hallway and into her room, the door of which was still open. The closet was open as well, and a quick look inside revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

"Everything looks fine in here!" Keitaro called. They met outside, then proceeded up the steps to the third floor. Naru's room was perfectly in order as well, but when they reached Motoko's door, both stopped dead. "All right..." Keitaro said slowly. "This is not good."

The door had been slashed to ribbons, the wooden frame sliced apart and the paper covering totally demolished. Inside wasn't much better; everything that wasn't bolted down had been knocked over, and even with the mess, the chamber seemed to be unusually bare.

"All her swords are gone," Keitaro said, gesturing to the polished wooden rack mounted on the wall. "And so's her kendo armor." Shinobu, adrenaline racing through her tiny body, paced around Keitaro's feet in a frantic circle.

"Who did this, sempai? Was it the fake Seta? Do you think this was the clue he was talking about?"

"I sure hope not," he replied, fingering a slash in the wall. "If it is the clue, it's not a very helpful one. What are we supposed to get from this? Motoko has a bad temper? I could have told him that."

"Maybe it's some kind of warning," she gulped. "Could he be telling us to leave him alone?"

"I don't think so...the way he talked on the phone, it sounded like he was enjoying himself. Let's go check Kitsune's room before we do anything else. If there's nothing in there, I'll try calling the police station again." He leaned over and swept Shinobu up, then headed for the last room in the hallway. This door, at least, was intact, and for a moment Shinobu was certain that everything would be silent and orderly inside. When Keitaro pulled it open, however, that notion vanished.

Sitting in the center of the room, facing directly toward them and peering forward with bright, black eyes, was a fox. It was unarguably a very pretty fox; smooth, orange-red fur covered every bit of it, save for its paws and the very tip of its tail, which were white, and delicately shaped ears, streaked with black, ran atop its head. It blinked curiously at them.

"Hey," it said smoothly, and seemed to grin. "What's going on? You're all sweaty. And when did you get a cat?" Shinobu felt her jaw drop, and thought she might have heard Keitaro's do the same.

"Kitsune?!"

Magician's Note: What a wonderful feeling this is...to be writing a story and actually having _fun doing it! I haven't enjoyed the process of doing a fic this much since I started my Harry Potter stuff. Guess that really says something for Love Hina, doesn't it?_

So, here we have things progressing at an interesting pace. Kitsune, apparently, has also undergone an animal transformation, and somebody at the police station is having a good time messing with Keitaro's head. Motoko is either in a rotten mood, or we're seeing what happens to female samurais at that time of the month. What will happen next? Who is the freak at the police station? Could I be any less original in turning Kitsune into a fox? I just don't know!


	4. In Which we encounter a drunken fox, Shi...

Magician's Note and Disclaimer: Day three of writing this story, and I'm still ahead by one chapter—don't I just kick all the ass in the world? (Compared to my recent track record, yes.) I _still don't own Love Hina, although I've been trying. Hell, I don't even own any of the mangas yet. I did finish reading #6 a little while ago, though. I gots to get me a job so I can bring these stupid things home instead of sitting in the bookstore...sigh._

But, the show must go on. We now rejoin Keitaro and Shinobu, who have just found Kitsune (transformed elegantly into her namesake) waiting casually inside her room, acting as if nothing has happened. What strange and mysterious hijinks will ensue from this new development? Do I even have the slightest clue myself? Only time will tell!

                                                **Two Down and Three to the Left, Part IV**

                                                               A Love Hina Story by MagicianXV

"What?" the fox asked, tilting its head to one side. "Is there something hanging out of my nose? Are my boobs showing?" Keitaro, still clutching Shinobu against his chest, gaped.

"K-kitsune? Is that really you?" The two of them stared, and the fox looked even more bewildered than ever.

"Well, yeah, of course it is. Who else would it be? I know I slept in a little, but that's no reason to act like I've mutated or something. And what's up with the cat, anyway? You tired of Tama-chan already?" Keitaro glanced at Shinobu, then placed her on the floor and sat down beside her. Kitsune watched, eyes narrow, but still dancing with amusement at some hidden joke.

"It's not really a cat," Keitaro said patiently, running a hand through his hair. Hadn't this day been stressful enough already? What had he done to deserve this? "It's Shinobu. I found her stuck in a closet about two hours ago." The amusement faded a little from Kitsune's eyes.

"That's kinda harsh, isn't it? I know Shinobu's on the scrawny, flat-chested side, but she's still just a kid. You shouldn't go around naming mangy cats after her." At this, Shinobu sat down very hard and let out a piteous squeak.

"Kitsune!" Keitaro picked the kitten up and stroked her head, glaring. "I didn't name the cat after Shinobu, the cat _is Shinobu. Have you looked in a mirror?" Again, the fox's long mouth curled into a grin._

"Why should I? I know I look great. Which is more than I can say for you, by the way—you're all pale and shaky. You been hittin' grandpa's medicine bottle, big boy?" Keitaro sighed tolerantly.

"Just go look in a mirror, Kitsune. We'll wait." For the first time in his life, Keitaro was treated to seeing a fox roll its eyes in exasperation.

"Fine, fine, if it'll make you happy. But I expect some big favors later for putting up with your weirdness, you got that?"

"Mirror."

"Whatever." Kitsune stood—or she tried to. A mirror was apparently not quite necessary to get the point across, for while Shinobu had grown accustomed to having four legs, Kitsune had been sitting through the entire conversation, and seemingly hadn't realized that she was no longer a biped. This resulted in a very confused fox sprawled gracelessly on the floor in front of them, long tail tangled with her limbs. "What the...?"

"For someone who's so good at paying attention to what's going on with _other people, Kitsune, you can be incredibly dense," Keitaro noted. "I'm going to pick you up and take you to a mirror, okay? Just hold still."_

"You?" Kitsune scoffed. "Pick _me up? In case you hadn't noticed, you're about as scrawny as that kitten."_

"Just...shut up for a second." Keitaro seized Kitsune around the midsection and carried her unceremoniously out of the room. 

"What—what the _hell?!" Kitsune cried, once she grasped what was going on. "How are you—wait a second, when did you get so damn tall, anyway?"_

"Don't I wish," Keitaro muttered, and went into the third-floor bathroom. He plopped Kitsune in the sink, so her head was about level with a wall-mounted mirror.

There was an extremely long silence.

"Hot damn," Kitsune said finally. "I look _good."_

                                                                                                *****

"Explain this to me again," Kitsune said, looking up from her bowl. "And pour me another while you're at it, I'm empty."

"You're the first fox I've ever seen with a taste for sake," Keitaro muttered, tipping another round from the bottle. Kitsune's ears perked up and she began to lap contentedly. 

"Go ahead," she urged between swallows. "I'm listening." Keitaro cleared his throat.

"So far, all we know is this—you and Shinobu are both animals, and everybody else is missing. Motoko's swords and armor are gone too, and some weirdo at the police station impersonated Seta and took you out to dinner last night. I think he's also the one who transformed you two, because he made it sound like he turned all the police officers into dogs. I'm pretty sure that he put you in your room as a hint for Shinobu and me, but I don't know what you're supposed to mean." He hesitated. "Yeah...that's everything. Any thoughts?"

"Um..." Kitsune's eyes, already slits, narrowed even further. "Not really. Except to say that I'm sorry for calling you scrawny and mangy and flat-chested, Shinobu. No hard feelings, right?" Shinobu, whose seat of choice seemed to have become Keitaro's lap, shook her head.

"No," she said quietly. "No hard feelings." 

"Great!" said Kitsune smoothly, completely missing Shinobu's tone. She finished her sake, then stood and stretched widely. "It is gonna take some serious time to get used to four feet and no thumbs," she observed, looking herself over. "This does have advantages, though. Did you know I can hear your thoughts, Keitaro?"

"Huh?" Keitaro jerked back a few inches, looking horrified. "You can?"

"Sure can. And I must say, I always knew you were a pervert, but I never thought you'd want to do that sort of thing to a defenseless kitten. Honestly! Have you no shame?" Keitaro turned beet-red, and he slid even further back.

"She's making it up, Shinobu, I swear! I'm not even thinking about you right now!"

"Well, sure, you aren't _now," Kitsune drawled. "Now he's thinking about me, and who can blame him? I am one __fine piece of fox, if I do say so myself."_

"I am _not thinking about you!" Keitaro howled. "I'm not thinking about __anything! My mind is a total blank! There is absolutely nothing but air inside my head!"_

"As if that wasn't painfully obvious to begin with," said Kitsune wryly. "I'm kidding anyways. Relax, and wipe that panicked expression off your face."

"You're really mean, you know that?" Keitaro muttered, scowling. Kitsune shrugged, grinning.

"So," she inquired, folding her front legs beneath her chin, "what do we do now? I've got my morning buzz going now, so I'm ready for anything."

"Just how often _are you buzzed?" Keitaro questioned. He pulled the sake bowl away from Kitsune, placing it and the half-drained bottle well out of her reach._

"Only after breakfast. And sometimes at about eleven...then around lunchtime, and a little bit at two." She licked her lips contemplatively, then added, "And it's bad karma not to have a few drinks before dinner, plus an evening just isn't complete without a gin and tonic. You know how it is."

"No," said Keitaro dryly. "I don't."

"Oh. Well, whatever. What're we supposed to do about finding the other guys?"

"I guess our only real option is to go to the police station," Keitaro decided. "We should really see for ourselves what's going on down there, and if the fake Seta is still there, we might be able to get some questions answered."

"Sounds like a plan," Kitsune said agreeably, clambering up. "Do I get a ride too, or is Shinobu the only one special enough?"

"She's the only one small enough," Keitaro corrected. "Lugging you around would be like having a horse under one arm."

"Not if you weren't such a nine-pound weakling. Y'ever consider doing some push-ups?"

"I'm not weak, you're just a really heavy fox."

"Yes you are, and no I'm not. C'mon, Keitaro, gimme a piggyback ride!" She danced back and forth, then gave a flying leap and landed on his back. "See? I'm not that heavy."

"Fine, fine. But you're carrying me on the way back."

The three of them left the house once again, nobody taking much notice of the storm clouds gathering overhead. Kitsune was in rare form, even if had become part of the beast kingdom, and Keitaro resigned himself to tolerating it as nobly as possible. Shinobu stayed nearly silent, wrapped contentedly in Keitaro's arms with no desire to leave.

Presently, it began to rain.

Magician's Note: Maaan...I was on such a role for a while there. Leave it to hardware troubles to slow down the creative process. If anybody out there was actually following this thing as it was posted, I offer a sincere, "Gomen!" (Hehe. I've just been itching to say something like that.) For some reason, my keyboard decided last night was an excellent time to cease functioning, and I couldn't get a replacement until late today. Not much of a pause, I know, but I've really been having a good time writing this, and I didn't want to stop. We're back in the saddle now though, and the road is clear and shiny.

And so, this chapter ends with our intrepid...um...heroes, journeying forth once more, searching doggedly for their companions. I apologize for the unoriginality in making Kitsune a fox, but there _is a good reason for her nickname. Will the fake Seta be lying in wait at the police station? Will any characters aside from my favorites even be __in this story? (Don't worry, they'll all show up sooner or later.) Stay tuned!_


	5. And now for something completely differe...

**Interlude**

"I've got you this time," Keitaro muttered, grinning confidently. He swept around a corner then stopped, pressed his back against the cold metal wall, and quickly reloaded his assault rifle. "There's no escaping the Ronin Destroyer." On his motion tracker, Keitaro's eyes traced a single red dot, moving speedily toward him. Thinking quickly, he dumped the rifle in favor of a rocket launcher and lobbed a fragmentation grenade around the corner.

"Be careful, sempai!" Shinobu warned; she was also following the motion tracker, and her face was rapt with anxiety. "She's right on top of you!"

"I see her," Keitaro acknowledged. There was a bright flash, followed by a resounding _boom; somewhere above them, Keitaro and Shinobu heard someone shout a curse. "Sounds like that was a hit." He swung around the corner, leveled the rocket launcher and fired blindly, emptying both tubes. They hit barely a half-second apart, and through the ensuing smoke, he saw an armored figure go flying gracefully through the air—only to land with a sickening thud a dozen yards away._

"_Game over!" announced the television. Keitaro let out a deep breath and set down his controller. The screen displayed the final standings—nine-two, his favor—then faded into a score sheet, labeled __Post Game Carnage Report. It reported that Keitaro, or his character (named Ronin-Des), had scored nine kills and died zero times. Below that was a second name, Kei Killer...who had scored four times and died thirty-eight._

"Is that even possible?" he wondered, reading the report. "How did I...?" He trailed off as the sound of someone stomping down a staircase became unsettlingly audible. Moments later the door flew open and Naru, flushed and furious, stormed in.

"You said you'd never played this before!" she accused, grabbing the front of his shirt.

"I haven't!" Keitaro insisted, cringing. "I didn't even know Su had an Xbox!"

"Actually, she has two," Shinobu said quietly, but Naru wasn't listening.

"Then just how the hell did you pull off all those fancy moves, huh?" Naru tightened her grip on Keitaro's collar and proceeded to deliver a glare that would have made a rampaging bull wet its pants.

"I don't know!" Keitaro choked earnestly. "The controls are pretty easy once you get the hang of them...I guess you're just really bad!"

"I am _not! You were cheating somehow, you had to be! Was Shinobu playing for you? Is that it?"_

"No!" Keitaro gasped; he was also turning red, but for completely different reasons. "She was...just watching! Right...Shinobu?" 

"That's right," Shinobu said, trying with some difficulty to pry Naru's hands from Keitaro's neck. "Why don't you just have a rematch? I'm sure you could win next time, Naru-sempai!"

"I kinda doubt that," Keitaro said, forgetting that he was being choked. 

"Why you—!" Much like Naru's game-character had done, Keitaro was suddenly floating through the air. He bounced off the ceiling, then hit the floor with a _crunch._

"Owie..."

"Hey, do you guys mind?" said Kitsune, wandering into the room. "I've got a killer headache, and all this noise isn't helping. That concoction Su mixed up was the strongest thing I've ever had."

"I told you not to drink it," Naru said severely, arms crossed over her chest. "Just remember not to try anything else she makes."

"What? No, I've just got to get rid of this hangover before I go back for seconds. You'd make a terrible drunk, Naru." It was only then that Kitsune seemed to notice the odd setup in the room; a large television propped in one corner with an Xbox seated before it. Running from the back of the system was a thick, black cable that trailed across the room and up through the hole separating Keitaro and Naru's rooms. "Now what've we got here?"

"Naru thought she could beat me," Keitaro explained, rubbing the back of his head. "She was wrong, as you can see for yourself." This earned him a second attempted whack, but he managed to duck it.

"Video games, huh?" Kitsune murmured, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "Hmm. I'll bet we cook up something more interesting than that." Seconds later, a huge grin had taken up residence on her face, and from the looks of it, it would be staying for a good, long while. "Yes indeed..._far more interesting." _

                                                                                                *****

"I am _not playing!" Naru repeated, banging her hand against the table._

"Because you know you'll lose," Keitaro said easily, looking his cards over. "I mean, with a track record like yours, there's no way you'll beat me."

"Just stick around," urged Kitsune, also shifting her cards. "It'll be much more interesting if you're here, especially if you do lose." Naru frowned suspiciously.

"Why?" Kitsune's grin widened, and she flashed it around the table; all the residents of Hinata House, save for Sara and Su, were seated and holding cards. Seta was also present, looking at his cards with a bemused expression.

"Because, we're not just playing poker...we're playing _strip poker!"_

There was a resounding thud as everyone but Kitsune promptly fell out of their chairs.

"Are you sure that's such a good idea?" Keitaro asked weakly, pulling himself up. "I mean...uh...well, you know..."

"Oh, come on, Keitaro," Kitsune said, throwing an arm over his shoulders, "be a _man for a change! You know you're interested."_

Keitaro fell silent as he considered this.

"I think it's a great idea!" Seta said, causing everyone to fall over again. "I mean, what better way to get comfortable with each other than a friendly game involving potential nudity?"

"That's the spirit!" Kitsune agreed. "Now then, we'll keep it simple—five card draw, deuces and one-eyed jacks are wild. Winner gets to choose the lucky victim, who then deals the next round." She looked wanly around the table. "Everybody got it?" 

There were a series of muttered, 'yeses' and 'yeahs', although she didn't know it, Kitsune was being given the finger from four directions under the table.

"Alrighty then! I'll open the betting with ten yen." She tossed a blue chip from a stack in front of her onto the center of the table. "That's to you, Motoko."

"This is a foolish and embarrassing exercise," Motoko muttered, placing a chip of her own beside Kitsune's. "But make no mistake—I will not be taken advantage of."

"I'm sure you won't. Shinobu?"

"Um..." Shinobu looked her cards over uncertainly. "I guess I'll stay in..." She also added a chip to the pile.

"You're all so unadventurous!" Seta exclaimed, lighting a cigarette. "I'll see Shinobu's bet and raise it a hundred yen." He winked at Motoko, who looked like she might fall over again. "What's the point of a game like this if it doesn't get a little crazy?"

"See, _that's the spirit we want!" Kitsune exclaimed. "How 'bout it, Keitaro?"_

"Oh, what the hell," Keitaro sighed. "I'm in." He matched Seta's bet, then turned to Naru.

"You're not going to scare me!" she said, slamming a pile of chips down. "We aren't playing some stupid first-person shooter anymore, so you've got no geek-skills to fall back on this time!" Kitsune seemed to glow as she watched the bet go around the table again, until it finally returned to her.

"Okay," she said, "here it is...the moment of truth. Lay 'em down, everybody." She slapped her cards onto the table. "Beat that!"

"Is that good?" Shinobu asked worriedly. 

"No," said Motoko flatly. "She has nothing." Kitsune's hand was composed of a king, a three, a seven, a queen, and a four. Motoko laid her cards down. "Two pair, fives being the higher."

"Is _that good?" Shinobu pursued. _

"Better than Kitsune's," Naru muttered. "What have you got?"

"I'm not sure." Shinobu placed her cards gently on the table. Everyone gawked.

"Well, that cinches it," Keitaro groaned. "Unless somebody can beat a Royal Flush, Shinobu wins." Nobody could.

"Ha!" Kitsune cried, slapping Shinobu on the back. "Talk about beginner's luck! Who's it gonna be, Shinobu?"

"Um..." she looked around uncertainly. "It was your idea to play this, right Kitsune?" Kitsune's eyebrows shot up.

"Well—yeah, it was, but—"

**Forty Minutes Later**

"All right," Kitsune said, handing her bra to Naru, "this was funny at first, but now it's getting excessive. And Keitaro, why don't you stare at someone else for a while?"

"I have no choice in the matter," said Keitaro honestly. "I think my neck has fused, to tell you the truth."

"You see?" said Seta, whose neck had locked in the same direction as Keitaro's, "this is a great way to get to know each other! I haven't been this happy and relaxed in days!"

"I'm sure you haven't," Keitaro muttered.

"Your bet, Kitsune," Naru reminded her.

"Fold," she said promptly, slamming her cards down.

"Would it be possible for me to win my shirt back?" Motoko inquired.

"Talk to Seta about that," Naru replied, examining her cards thoughtfully.

"I don't think so," Seta said calmly. "Not unless you're willing to trade for my pants, that is."

"I do not bargain with low-lifes."

"Suit yourself," said the professor, then laughed merrily as another round ended. "Well, well, it seems I've scored another victory! Does Kitsune have anything left?"

"You wouldn't _dare," Kitsune said flatly. _

"I just might..."

"Can we make this quick?" Keitaro pleaded. "I'm really cold."

"You've got Naru's skirt," Seta pointed out. "That might warm you up." Keitaro made some quick geometric calculations in his head and decided that he wasn't in the mood to be launched at _quite the angle Naru's fist would strike him at._

"On second thought, I'm good."

"Right then," Seta said. "Now, who was I about to decide upon?"

"Let Shinobu have a turn," Kitsune suggested. "Nobody's even gotten her once."

"Sounds reasonable," said Seta. "Shinobu, the ski-parka, if you please." Shinobu unzipped her coat and handed it over.

"I still don't understand why she got to change clothes in the middle of the game," Kitsune grumbled. "Somebody get out the liquor. I need a drink."

Shinobu just smiled and thought back over the poker tactics she had learned on the Internet.

**Eight Hours Later**

Haruka surveyed the scene, puffing reflectively on her cigarette.

Naru and Keitaro were sprawled across a couch, in a position that would surely raise some eyebrows when they awoke. Keitaro was in his boxers, Naru concealed beneath a blanket. Motoko was heaped in a corner, positioned in such a manner that her sword reflected sunlight in Haruka's eyes when she tried to see what her attire composed of. Kitsune was under a table, and as far as the older woman could tell, completely naked. Shinobu was curled in an armchair, fully dressed and with a large pile of clothing in front to her. Haruka sighed.

"I always miss the good parties.

Magician's Note: I know—this had nothing to do with the story. I felt the urge to write something though (could be because I am bored out of my skull) and this was an idea that seemed to fit too well to pass up. Kudos for anybody who can guess what game Naru and Keitaro were playing at the beginning, BTW. I'll try and have another chapter of the actual story up by tomorrow, and in the meantime, go buy yourselves an Xbox. Unless you're a disgruntled PS2 person, it's totally worth the money.


	6. In Which Kitsune is troublesome, an old ...

Magician's Note and Disclaimer: And we're back once again, after a short sabbatical! Why the sabbatical? Hell if I know. Sorry for anybody who might have been annoyed that the Interlude went up instead of a new chapter, but since the overall response has been pretty positive, I think I'll not worry about it. I doubt the story will end up being long enough to warrant a second Interlude though, so no concerns there.

I'm ready for more action now, having just watched the last episode of _Love Hina Again this morning, and action there shall be! The mystery is getting closer and closer to a resolution, or at least a little bit of illumination, so I suppose I had better figure out who the fake Seta is. (Just kidding. I know what's going to happen.) When we last left off, Keitaro, Shinobu, and Kitsune were all on their way to the police station in search of some much-needed info on the whereabouts of the other girls. Will somebody else finally turn up? Just maybe..._

**Two Down and Three to the Left**

**    A Love Hina Story by MagicianXV**

"It's a funny thing," Kitsune said brightly, shaking away the droplets of water that had begun to bead on her whiskers, "but foxes don't mind rain. I mean, nobody likes being cold and wet, but I'll bet my tail that I don't mind this nearly as much as you do, Shinobu." Shinobu, huddled miserably against Keitaro chest, said nothing. "Yesiree, I am just peachy down here. I can walk through puddles and I hardly notice. I—"

"Can it, Kitsune," Keitaro snapped. He, too, was looking more than a little soggy, and Kitsune's interminable good mood wasn't helping matters. "I think turning into a fox has made you even more annoying, if that's possible." Kitsune's brown eyes flew open in mock horror.

"You thought I was _annoying before? I'm crushed!"_

In unison, both Keitaro and Shinobu muttered, "Don't I wish." Finally seeming to take a hint, Kitsune clammed up. 

They trudged on in silence for some time, bombarded by fat, heavy drops of rain. Keitaro shifted Shinobu carefully to the other arm and gave his sopping shirt a flap; it was clinging to his skin, feeling more than anything else like a piece of wet paper. Kitsune took no notice, and danced lightly around a wide puddle. Keitaro watched her, curious despite himself and his extra-hydrated condition. Why was she acting so strangely? Foxes in general weren't overly animated creatures, so why would Kitsune—usually prone to long, unannounced naps—be under the effects of a sugar binge?

"Sakura trees are beautiful in the rain, aren't they?" she asked suddenly, staring up at the pink blossoms. "I never really noticed before, but the way the rain slides down the petals...it's like someone put little drops of glass on them." She paused, one paw hovering above the damp cement. "There's a song about that, isn't there?" she murmured. "About rain, and sakura petals...do you know it, Keitaro?"

"I don't think so," he said. "I must not have heard it before."

"That's too bad...I can't remember it either. I wonder how long ago I heard it last? Must have been years, at least...I'll ask Naru when we find her. She may know it."

"Can we keep going?" Shinobu mewed, shivering as water slid down her nose. "I'm really cold, and the storm's about to get worse."

"It is?" Keitaro looked up at the dark sky, trying to figure out how she could say so with such certainty. "Can you see something I can't?"

"No," the kitten said, also looking up, "it's a smell. Like...like when a storm is just about to start. You can smell it on the breeze, and you know it's time to go inside. Like that, but a little different."

"She's right," Kitsune agreed. "I didn't notice it before, but it's definitely about to get a lot worse."

"When?" Keitaro asked. "I can't smell it."

"Soon," said both of the girls. Deciding he would be a fool to argue with noses that were surely better than his own, Keitaro picked up his pace and made a beeline for the police station. Kitsune kept up easily, dodging back and forth around puddles the entire time.

                                                                                                                *****

Roughly three blocks away from the Hinata Police Station, Shinjomi Amato was in an extremely grouchy frame of mind. He had been trying for nearly an hour, with no success to speak of, to convince his television set to show him the baseball game. The television, in a stunning display of eloquence and good humor, had politely (by way of a static-filled screen and a lot of buzzing) told him to shove the remote wherever it fit best and leave him alone.

Shinjomi was not pleased with this development.

"Piece of junk," he growled, paging viciously through the owner's manual. "Don't get a damn thing for your money these days...when I was a kid, you got a good piece of equipment when you paid this much for it. Now everything goes nuts the second a rainstorm comes along."

"I'm making rice balls!" called his wife from the kitchen. "The little ones that you like!"

"Good," Shinjomi replied, thinking how much he hated his wife's cooking. He had never, in the thirty-nine years they had been married, been able to tell her how much he hated her cooking.

"I'll make a lot of them, since you like them so much!"

"You do that," said Shinjomi. He wondered if throwing his television through a window would help anything, then decided that would be slightly counterproductive. He then weighed the possibility of throwing his wife through a window to prevent her from cooking, and came to the conclusion that, while it would prevent any rice balls from being served, it was probably a better idea to leave her where she was.

"Could you stop playing with the lights, dear? I'm having trouble seeing my cookbook!"

"I'm not doing anything with the lights," said Shinjomi, frowning. Was the television starting to blow the fuses now?

"But the lights in here are flickering. You must be doing something."

"I told you, I'm not—" he broke off, looking up in surprise, as the lights over his own head began to fade on and off. "Now what's that all about?" he muttered. It _had to be the fuses...or, he reasoned, perhaps a downed power line. Best to check, either way. "I'm going to make sure the fuses are working," he called, shoving his toolbox aside and getting to his feet._

"That's good, dear. I'll make some tea."

"Please don't," he didn't say, and went outside with a curt nod. 

The fuse box, although it would have made far more sense, was not inside the house. It was stored instead in a small alcove along the house's east wall, blocked from the elements by a metal hood. Shinjomi ducked under this and popped the latch, opening the case. All the fuses were intact.

"Power line," he sighed. "That'll take 'em a few weeks to fix, if they get around to it that quickly." He closed the fuse box and turned to go back inside, but he never finished. In mid-movement, something caught the corner of his eye, and he looked slowly toward the street.

From Shinjomi's house, he had a good view of Hinata's main drive, which held a grocery store, post office, and the police station. The first two were in order, which was to say that they were silent and dark—no one was out in a storm like this one was becoming, and he knew that, should he check, there would be 'Closed for the Day' signs on both buildings' doors. The police station, however, was an object of some curiosity; the blinds were pulled on both windows, but even through the plastic, Shinjomi could see swells of light rising and falling, as if someone was toying with a dimmer switch. This was odd enough by itself, but made even more unusual by the type of light. Instead of a normal, yellow glow, the police station was emitting a deep, crimson haze. It caught on the streams of rainwater running down the street, making it appear that there was blood flowing into the sewers.

"Now that just isn't proper," Shinjomi muttered critically, frowning. "No police station I ever saw had lights like that." 

Shivering under the cold rain, he went back into the house and directly to the telephone. One of the lieutenants was an old friend of his, and would surely know why there were such ridiculous things going on at what should have been a respectable place. Shinjomi dialed the number and waited impatiently. A few seconds later there was the sound of a phone being picked up...and then nothing. Well, almost nothing—there was a fuzzy, crinkly sort of static, but aside from that, silence was the only sound.

"Hello?" he called, wondering if his phone was also on the fritz. "Is Yamato Rimoda in? I want to talk to him." The phone crackled at him in response. "Hey, what's going on down there? Are you having a party or something? Because—"

"_Please, Mr. Amato, spare me your old man's wheezing and do__ shut up." For a long moment, Shinjomi was dumbstruck, and the person on the other end got its wish. Then his voice returned, and unlike his television, it was definitely not on the fritz._

"Now you just see here!" he shouted, anger rising in his chest, "Who do you think you are, talking to me like that? Why don't you show a little respect for your elders, eh?"

"_You are not my elder, Mr. Amato, nor do I have any respect for you. If I did, I would have paid some sort of attention to you before now. As it stands, you are a bore and a hassle, and I suggest you__ show me__ a little respect before I become impatient."_

"Well I—if I didn't—what's your name, boy?" Shinjomi sputtered furiously. "I'll be reporting to your superiors, you can count on that! Who are you?"

"_You wouldn't be capable of pronouncing my name even if I did tell you, Mr. Amato. I, on the other hand, can pronounce your name quite easily. Did it not even occur to your feeble mind to wonder how I know it?" The hot anger in Shinjomi's chest deflated substantially as he realized that the person was right; he been called by name three times now._

"Just...who are you?" he said, but his voice was sounding much weaker. "What's going on down there?"

"_You must not be a smart man. I believe I told you not to make me impatient, and that is exactly what you are currently doing. I'm quite busy at the moment, so I'll give you one opportunity to make amends—apologize for your rudeness, and I'll forget this little incident ever happened."_

"I'll do no such thing!" Shinjomi snapped. His heart was beating like a jackhammer, but scared or not, he wasn't going to let some prankster boss him around. "You get out of that station right now or I'm calling_—" _

"_You're a very slow leaner, aren't you, Mr. Amato? Not only have you missed your opportunity to apologize, but you seem intent on further antagonizing me. I'm afraid you'll have to be taught a lesson. I'd suggest you find a hiding place, Mr. Amato, or the next few minutes could be quite hazardous to your health."_

Years afterward, Shinjomi was still never exactly sure what happened next. He heard the phone being hung up, and the crinkly static stop, but at the same time he was hearing what he _thought was a siren. Then he realized that it was much closer than a siren could have been—coming from his kitchen, to be exact. A moment later his wife came barreling out, howling and shrieking about a stalker in the house, waving a ceramic bowl around and spraying the entire living room with rice. The next bit was the confusing one—something else left the kitchen, but so quickly he never even got a good look. It was tall, he knew that much, and he thought it might have been wearing—_

But that was ridiculous, wasn't it? 

Why would an intruder be running around in kendo armor?

Either way, he had very little time to ponder it. The thing shot into the room and froze momentarily in the corner, blocked from view by shadows cast by the enormous storm clouds. Then it was off again, flashing and flailing in all directions. Something slashed to the left and Shinjomi's television set fell into two pieces. The couch met a similar fate, and Shinjomi himself maintained that he nearly lost a shoulder. 

Within seconds it was gone again, basting its way through the front window in a hail of glass and wood. Rain poured in through the shattered pane, and a bolt of lightning reflected off the destroyed television screen. The room was entirely dark now—the electrical cords to every light in the room had been severed. Shinjomi's wife was still wailing away, apparently oblivious to the fact that the threat was over. Or...was it?

A deep, guttural groaning was issuing from the walls and ceiling, and Shinjomi scrambled to his feet, fueled by adrenaline alone. He hauled his wife up as well and dragged her bodily out the back door. They ran for twenty feet before the groaning reached his ears again, and he stopped, gasping for breath. He turned and watched, not completely able to process what he was seeing, as his entire house fell in upon itself. The walls and roof simply collapsed; they didn't exactly crumble, but fell apart, as if they had been cut clean through into sections.

A thunderclap sounded overhead. Rain soaked Shinjomi's gray hair, but he didn't even notice.

Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.

                                                                                                                *****

"I am _not going in there," Kitsune said. "Not for all the sake in Hinata."_

"If you drank all the sake in Hinata, I don't think you'd be saying no to anything," Keitaro countered, pushing his hair out of his eyes. She did have a point, though—it wasn't as if he wanted to go into a building with a red glow coming from the windows either.

"No," Kitsune murmured, "I guess I wouldn't. My morning buzz is all gone though. Do you realize what that means, Keitaro?" He shook his head absently, wondering if sliding a polite note under the door would be too subtle. "It means I'm _sober. I hate being sober. Life is a lot more fun when you're looking at it with that little edge that a couple of good drinks give you."_

"I'll buy you a drink as soon as we get this figured out," Keitaro promised. "We've come this far already though, and I for one would like to know what happened to everybody else."

"So would I!" Kitsune said earnestly, dashing up the police station's steps after Keitaro. "I just think we might be better prepared after a round or two. Or three. You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do," he said, trying very hard to ignore how enticing Kitsune's reasoning was. "Let's just...we'll make it quick, okay? In and out. If we don't find anything, we'll go back to Hinata House and think things over with some hot sake."

"Now _that is a plan I can deal with," the fox said, grinning. "But make sure Shinobu gets some too, right? I've always wanted to see a drunk kitten."_

"I'm tired of being a kitten," Shinobu muttered. "I want to be a person again."

"That's fine," Kitsune said agreeably. "I'd like to see you drunk as a human too. I'll bet you'd take off all your clothes and run around the house singing anime theme songs." She nodded to herself. "Yep. Wait..._I did that, didn't I?"_

"Yes," Keitaro confirmed, "you did." He tried the door handle, fully expecting it to be locked, and was caused a great deal of surprise when the door opened smoothly. 

"It worked!" Kitsune said, unmasked astonishment in her voice. "Dammit! Er—I mean—good!" Keitaro shoved the door completely open, and the three of them moved cautiously inside.

The lobby was vacant. A long desk sat against the far wall, covered with stacks of papers and three black phones, but no police officers were seated behind it. The only sign of life in the entire room was a potted plant beside one of the front windows. The red glow was even more vivid than it had been from outside, however—it reminded Keitaro of light he had seen cast from a burning house some years before. He walked a few steps into the room, holding Shinobu tightly and trailed closely by Kitsune, before he stopped and realized that there was no _source for the red light. It filled the entire lobby, but not a lamp or light bulb was anywhere within sight._

"Where is that _coming from?" he asked, not really directing the question to anyone in particular. The light pulsed rhythmically, but no matter where he turned, Keitaro couldn't identify anything casting it. _

"It's like it's coming from the building," Shinobu said softly, eyes wide with apprehension. "But that's impossible...isn't it?"

"Well, I don't know about the two of you," Kitsune said loudly, taking a few steps backwards, "but I've had my fill of ass-freaking weirdness for the day. What say we head back to the house for that hot sake, huh?"

"We can't," Keitaro said, swallowing. "We have to keep going, Kitsune...the other girls need us, and this might be the clue to finding them."

"You give them my best then, okay?" Kitsune said, spinning on her paws. "I'll make sure everything is safe back at home. Later!" She made a dash for the still-open door, but it suddenly slammed shut in her face. At the same time, all three phones on the desk began to ring. Keitaro stopped in his tracks, barely noticing Shinobu's tiny claws dig through his shirt and into his chest.

And then, without warning, the lights went out.

Magician's Note: Damn, this one took me a while. Sorry to anybody who's been keeping up with me, but this chapter was, for some reason, particularly hard to get out of my head and into text. I guess it's a lot easier to write fluff and strip poker than it is to actually wrap up a plot. Honestly though, I didn't intend for this story to have a plot. I swear! It was all an accident!

I leave everybody with a cliffhanger, more because I can't think how to describe what comes next than I actually want to end it here. I need a day or two to mull this over. I can tell that Keitaro and Shinobu are giving me dirty looks, though...heh. In the meantime, everyone go play some Halo.

PS—I am a Kitsune fan, and I don't generally think of her as a coward. I know she's a little OOC here, but I have a reason. Bear with me, folks. You're in good hands.

Snicker.


	7. In which things wind to a close, more or...

Magician's Note and Disclaimer: Okay, I admit it—I've been lazy. I had most of this section sitting around inside the cave of wonders that is my brain (insert derisive snort here) for the better part of a week now, and I haven't done a thing with it. This turns out to have been for the best though, since I just got to see another episode of the anime last night, and it gave me a great idea of how to wrap everything up a little more neatly. I'm not going to say _which episode it was, because that might spoil the surprise for the avid viewers out there, and I hate to ruin a suspense story._

And now I've been _really lazy. You can't tell it from reading my note, but I've had the first paragraph of my disclaimer sitting around waiting for me to write some actual story for two days. Bleah. I don't have to work today though, so I'm gonna have a drink of water, take a deep breath, then try and finish this thing once and for all. (Me? Finish a story? Unreal!) _

Everybody send me your ki, and I just might be able to pull it off.

**Two Down and Three to the Left, Part VI**

**                                                A Love Hina Story by MagicianXV**

When he looked back on that rainy, chaotic day, Keitaro would later admit that he had never been entirely sure what was going on. The concept of normal life obviously went out the window when Shinobu turned up as a feline, but even so, things had only become more and more surreal. For example, seeing a fox drinking sake like a pro was definitely something he would have liked to have a Polaroid of, if for no other reason than to be sure it actually happened. Life has a funny way of playing jokes on people however, and not only had Keitaro's situation grown even more unsettling, but he was now completely in the dark.

Literally.

"Shinobu!" he shouted, waving his arms frantically around. "Where are you? Kitsune? Are you guys okay?"

"Quit shouting!" he heard Kitsune yell. "I'm fine, but—ow! Who put a damn wall here?"

"Where did Shinobu go?" Keitaro whirled around, unable to see anything in the pitch-darkness. Somewhere on his left, one of the three black phones on the police station's front desk was still ringing, but he barely noticed it. Shinobu had been secure against his chest before the lights went out, but now there was no trace of her.

"What's that noise?" Kitsune was demanding. Keitaro felt her bump against his leg and stumbled back, landing against the desk with a thump. "And who turned off that red light? What the _hell is going on?"_

"You'll know as soon as I do!" Keitaro snapped, rubbing his side; he had landed against the desk's corner and it felt rather like he had punctured something. "Shinobu!" He shoved off from the desk and took a few uncertain steps forward, hands outstretched in front of him. He crossed about half the room, moving slowly for fear of stepping on Shinobu if he found her, until his fingers brushed something that felt like fur. "Shinobu? Is that you?"

"Hey!" he heard Kitsune exclaim. "I found her, Keitaro! She was under the desk...I think you dropped her, you big idiot. Nice job." The gears in Keitaro's head spun freely for a few confused seconds, then came to a grinding, smoking halt.

"She's over there?" he asked dumbly. "But—if she's over there then what's this thing...in front...of...me?"

It was at about that second that the red lights decided to come back on. It wasn't all at once either, but a gradual shading of illumination that filled the room slowly, bathing the sparse furniture in a hot, crimson glow. Keitaro found himself staring at something very black and very hairy; it was fur he had touched, that was for sure. The only problem was that it appeared he had touched the fur on the thing's _chest, which meant it was a good three feet taller than he was._

Very, very slowly, Keitaro looked up.

"_Urashima..." growled the thing. Under different circumstances, Keitaro expected he would have wet his pants about then. (Different circumstances being if he had drank anything at all that day.) Fortunately his dignity was spared, and the black thing had to settle for seeing him start to shake like a bowl of jello. _

It was enormous, for starters. The creature's body extended from the hallway at the far end of the room all the way to where Keitaro was standing—a distance of about nine feet, give or take. It stood on four massive legs, each about the width of a telephone pole, ending in huge paws tipped in claws resembling meathooks. The face was wide and wolfish, and its nose was roughly level with Keitaro's, so he had an excellent view of its teeth; there were a vast number of these, and every one of them looked quite capable of grinding concrete into dust. It rumbled a growl, and a blast of cold, damp wind nearly knocked him over.

"_Urashima," it growled a second time. Keitaro waited for it to bite his head off, but the movement never came. After a few very tense seconds, he plucked up his remaining strands of courage._

"Um...y-yes? Can I help you?" The wolf-monster seemed to scowl. Its eyes, a deep, dark yellow-brown, narrowed in what looked incredibly like thought.

"_Talk."_

"Uh...yes, we are talking. I mean, you're talking, and you're doing a great job for a big...slobbering...dog-thing." The eyes narrowed further, but now it just looked annoyed.

"_TALK!" A second blast of wind shot from the beast's maw, knocking Keitaro clean over. He rolled the length of the room and hit the wall, slumping beside Kitsune and the unconscious Shinobu. The wolf snarled, and Keitaro could have sworn he felt drops of rain splattering on his face._

"Keitaro." It was Kitsune. He looked down at her. "I think he wants you to pick up the phone. It's probably ringing for a reason, you know?"

"Oh," he said, thinking how much sense this made, and also that he really, _really didn't want to answer the phone. "Maybe you should do it instead." The fox rolled its eyes and lifted one paw from the floor._

"Do I have thumbs, Mr. Tokyo-U?" Keitaro had to admit she didn't. He did some quick-soul searching and discovered that, surprisingly enough, he was more willing to answer a phone than he was to risk annoying a giant wolf-beast by _not answering one, so he stood and moved slowly over to the desk. The wolf watched him the entire time, breathing through its wide snout in short, cold bursts. Keitaro lifted the phone from the receiver and pressed it against his ear._

"Hello?"

"_Mr. Urashima!" There was no doubt about it—it was the same crackly, static-filled voice as before.__ "__What a profound pleasure it is to speak with you again. Although it really isn't." Keitaro frowned and tried to figure out whether or not he had just been insulted. "__I am pleased you made it this far, however. The timer is winding down now, so I suggest you do exactly what I tell you if you want to survive this ordeal."_

"What do you want me to do?" Keitaro inquired. He privately thought it would be very nice if he was required to relax in the hot spring back at Hinata House, but that didn't seem very likely.

"_Roughly one minute after our conversation ends, someone will attempt to enter the front door. You will let them in, then bring them to the end of the hallway. Take the last door on the left hand side, which will lead you into a storage room. At the back of this storage room, you will see a stairway which descends into the basement of the building you are currently inside. Go down this stairway, and I will be waiting for you at the bottom. If you can complete this task without bumbling it up in some manner, you and your friends will be free to go. I expect most of the changes I've made to your world will be reversed as well, although I can't be entirely certain."_

"That's what I have to do?" Keitaro asked, almost giddy with relief. It sounded ridiculously easy, and he had no complaints about that.

"_That is all. Of course, if you do make a mistake, Garou-sama will eat your fox. If you make a second mistake, he will eat your dear, precious little kitten. If you make a third mistake..." The voice trailed off into a very nasty chuckle._

"Garou-sama?" Keitaro glanced over his shoulder; the wolf's head perked up slightly at the sound of the name and snorted wind at him.

"_Yes, that's what I've been calling him. It is a bit of a shame I won't be able to take him with me, but I expect he shall be safe enough in your world."_

"My world?" Keitaro repeated, feeling that he was being left out of something very big and interesting. It was almost like there was a cloud around his head, and if he could pull his face out of it, everything would be clear. The problem was that no matter how low he ducked, the cloud stuck with him. "What are you—"

"_No time for that now, Mr. Urashima. Your task will begin momentarily. Do__ try not to fuck it up." The line clicked, and a dial tone hummed into Keitaro's ear. He set the phone down, thinking that the cloud around his head was also on the rude side._

"So?" Kitsune hissed, still crouched against the wall. "Who was it? What do you have to do? I know they told you to do something."

"I think I have to...guide somebody," he said, not totally sure himself. "Just help me be sure I don't trip or anything, okay?" Kitsune blinked curiously.

"Why?" Keitaro looked quickly at Garou-sama. He wasn't showing quite as many teeth anymore, but didn't exactly look cheerful either.

"You'll be much happier not knowing. Somebody should be here any second though, and the guy on the phone said I have to take them to the basement."

"The basement? Who's coming? And was the guy on the phone the fake Seta?"

"I think we'll know pretty soon," Keitaro told her. "But for now—" He broke off suddenly as the door handle clicked; someone was trying to turn it, but it was locked from the inside. "_Here we go," he thought, and dashed across the small lobby. The locked turned smoothly and Keitaro flung the door open. Standing outside, drenched in rain and dressed in gleaming black armor, was none other than—_

"Motoko?!" Keitaro and Kitsune both cried her name at the same time, and the former stumbled back from the door in shock. Motoko's face was mostly hidden by the grating on her helmet, but there was no mistaking her. 

"Motoko!" Kitsune exclaimed, leaping up. "Man, am I glad you're here! This has been one crazy day, believe you me." She hesitated; Motoko had given no response at all, and was still standing in the rain, oblivious to the water pouring into her armor. "Motoko...?"

"I don't think she's herself right now, Kitsune," Keitaro muttered, stepping forward. "Look at her eyes." The fox looked, and understood what Keitaro had meant. Motoko's eyes were utterly blank. If it been the first time they had met, Kitsune could have mistaken her friend for a mannequin. 

"What the hell is this?" she muttered, slinking backwards. "Who did this to her?"

"Seta," Keitaro answered cryptically. He placed one hand carefully on Motoko's shoulder, waiting to see if she would slice it off. When she made no attempt to unsheathe her sword, he guided her carefully through the doorway and closed it behind her. Even though her legs did move when he pushed, it was mechanical, as if she were merely something programmed to react. She was clutching a large bundle, wrapped tightly in yellowed cloth. Keitaro didn't dare try to take it from her. Keitaro shut the door while Kitsune watched Motoko warily.

"To the basement, huh?" she murmured. "That's the whole deal?"

"As far as I know," Keitaro said. He picked Shinobu up, then reconsidered. "Kitsune, if I put Shinobu on your back, do you think you can keep her from falling off?"

"Um..." Kitsune cast a dubious look at the sleeping kitten, then gave a strange, four-legged version of a shrug. "Yeah, I guess. Won't know unless I try, anyway."

"Thanks." He knelt down beside her and carefully situated Shinobu in a position that looked secure, then stood and faced Motoko. "Please don't kill me for this, Motoko," he requested, inching around behind her. "I don't think you're going to move by yourself though, so this is the best thing I can think of." Placing one hand on each of her armored shoulders, Keitaro began to steer her across the lobby. Garou-sama apparently knew what was coming—as soon as he spotted Motoko, he shifted his immense bulk away from the hall, clearing a path. "Thank you very much," Keitaro said sincerely as they passed. 

Garou-sama leered at him, then snorted carelessly, as if to say, "It's not as if I really cared anyway." Keitaro took this as progress in their relationship and continued down the hall. 

Kitsune padded close behind him, stopping every few feet to shift Shinobu to one side or the other. They passed numerous doors until the hallway finally ended, yielding one last door on the left-hand side. There was nothing ominous about it, a fact which Keitaro didn't mind at all. He reached around Motoko and pushed it open, then carefully propelled her forward. There was a short moment of panic when he wasn't sure if she would be able to negotiate the stairs, but her legs seemed to know what to do even if she was a zombie in other regards. Breathing a sigh of relief, he continued onward. 

The stairs led down for a long time, much longer than they seemingly should have. Even with Motoko leading the way, so to speak, Keitaro didn't feel at all safe, and he felt his heart rate increasing with nearly every step until he was positive that Kitsune must have been able to hear it. Out of morbid curiosity, he started to turn around and see what she was doing.

"Don't look back here," she hissed sharply. "That damn wolf is breathing down my neck and I think it'll bite my head off if we make any sudden movements." Remembering what the person on the phone had told him, Keitaro deemed it in Kitsune's best interests if he did exactly what she said.

The stairway finally ended, and the group found themselves wrapped on all sides in total darkness. Motoko stood like a statue in front of them, Garou-sama like a demon behind. Keitaro squinted, trying to see if there was anything in the basement aside from them, but he couldn't make heads or tails of anything more than three feet away.

They waited in tense silence. 

Garou-sama, incredibly enough, sneezed. 

They waited some more.

"This bites," Kitsune observed. "What did we come down here for? To stand in the dark forever?"

"I'm sure I did everything right," Keitaro said. "I'm _sure. All that person on the phone told me to do was bring Motoko down here without screwing anything up."_

"Don't worry, Mr. Urashima," said someone. "You've done a perfectly acceptable job." The voice came from about ten feet away, judging by the sound of it, and Keitaro spun around in the direction he thought it had come from.

"Who's there?" A loud, metallic clunk echoed through the room, and Keitaro was suddenly able to see normally as fluorescent lights flared to life. 

The voice belonged, not to Seta, but to an old man. Keitaro looked closer and realized that 'old' didn't even begin to describe him; he was positively _ancient. His back was hunched, and he was balanced on a thick, knobby cane that ended in a three-pronged claw. His skin was incredibly wrinkled and dry; he looked as if he were covered in crumpled-up paper. A thick, white-gray beard covered the lower half of his face and ran all the way to the floor, but he didn't seem to mind. As Keitaro watched, the man took a few halting steps forward._

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you in person," the old man said, chuckling wheezily. "A pleasure for me, in any case. I doubt you're very pleased."

"Just confused, to tell you the truth," Keitaro admitted. The man stopped a few paces away and looked Keitaro over severely. 

"I'm afraid you'll have to remain that way, for the time being," he replied. "I'm not the type to give out information freely. Garou-sama might tell you a thing or two eventually, but I wouldn't suggest pestering him about it. Neither of us has a very good temper." 

The man now walked straight past Keitaro and stopped when he reached Motoko. He lifted one hand from his cane and made a movement that seemed horribly creepy and arcane to Keitaro. Motoko instantly came to life; her arms, which had still been clutching the sheet-wrapped bundle, released the cargo and lowered it into the old man's grasp. He chuckled again, this time with a note of unmistakable triumph.

"After all this time," he murmured, caressing the cloth with a withered hand, "my day of victory." He turned away from the samurai and walked across the room once more, supporting himself with his free hand. When he reached the wall, he halted and turned toward Keitaro. "I'm afraid this is where we part ways, Mr. Urashima," he announced, beaming. "You'll find the rest of your friends back at your home. Tell them whatever you like."

"What—that's it?" Keitaro blurted. "But—who are you?" The man smiled and shook his head.

"As I told a very rude gentleman a short while ago, I have no name that you could pronounce. But..." he let his voice trail off and smiled again, the wrinkles around his eyes deepening as he did so. "For the sake of humor, you may call me Geppeddo. I am, you see, a puppet master, of sorts. I came to your world to collect something that was taken from me. Something that I care about very much."

"Taken?" Keitaro's mind was whirling, but not in any way that was helpful. "What? And by who?"

"This, of course," said Geppeddo, running his hand over the bundle of cloth. "And you should know the answer to your second question. After all, you _are the one who took it, Keisuke." An unpleasant screeching sound was suddenly mixed into Keitaro's whirling brain as a few cogs came loose._

"Keisuke? What are you—but—"

"Forgotten it already, have you?" Geppeddo sighed and shook his head in disgust. "We live so closely to each other, but are still so different...my world is not far at all from yours, you know. Only two down and three to the left from this one." He sighed again and fingered his beard. "Humans. Such a momentary species. You exist and are gone before you even have the chance to grasp what your lives can truly amount to. Maybe this will help." Leaning further than his hunched back should have permitted, the old man laid his bundle on the concrete floor and began to unwrap it. The folds of cloth came away easily, revealing something Keitaro had all but forgotten about. He heard Kitsune gasp behind him.

"That's...Moe-chan?" Geppeddo picked the doll up from the old sheet and cradled it in his arms.

"Yes, it is. In my world she is called something different, but you would not be able to speak it. Sufficed to say, she means a great deal to me, and I was very unhappy when you took her away. But..." the old man smiled again, and for the first time, it looked like an honest, happy smile. "...But now, all is as it should be. I shall now leave you, Mr. Urashima, and I beg that you treat others better than you have treated me. Farewell."

"Wait!" Keitaro shouted, resisting the urge to grab the man's shoulder. "I still—there's way too much going on here. Are you the one who's been doing everything? I mean, the fake Seta last night, and turning Shinobu and Kitsune into animals—was that all you?" The old man gave the tiniest roll of his eyes.

"I believe you already knew I was responsible for your friends' transformations," he said coolly. "I am quite skilled at the art of changing one thing into another. Garou-sama, for example, is actually a hurricane." Keitaro managed a quick look at the gigantic wolf; it didn't take that much imagination to see it being a storm in another life. "But," Geppeddo continued, "as to your question about Mr. Noriyasu, yes—that was also my doing. I used a puppet of dear old Seta to investigate Hinata House, and to be certain that it was indeed where Moe-chan was located. To be frank, you're quite lucky it was me who arrived first. Moe-chan is hardly the only unusual thing about your home."  

"What does _that mean?" Keitaro asked, frowning. Geppeddo gave him a dismissive wave._

"Plenty of time for that later, but I expect you'll figure it out eventually anyhow. I, however, would very much like to return to my own home. Be kind to people, Mr. Urashima, and your life will be a much happier affair." He bowed deeply, and then winked. "Adieu."

And just like that—from one second to the next—he was gone. The wrinkled sheet was still lying on the floor, but Geppeddo and Moe-chan had vanished without a trace. For about a minute, Keitaro tried desperately to understand what was going on, or what had just _finished going on, but he gave it up. There was just no point._

"Keitaro!" He turned and looked at Kitsune. He looked at Kitsune some more. He wondered if he could have stopped looking at Kitsune even if he had wanted to. "Quit staring," she snapped. "It's not like you've never seen it before."

"Sorry," Keitaro said, giving his head a shake. "I didn't realize you had turned back into a human. When...did that happen, exactly?"

"Right after the old fart split. I think he was the only thing keeping all the weird stuff going on. As soon as he left, everything went back to normal." Keitaro had been holding his jacket out to her, and she accepted it gratefully. "Thanks. Whoa...feels weird to have two legs again." She teetered uncertainly, and would have fallen forward if Keitaro's shoulder hadn't been there for support. He said nothing; his eyes were glued to, strangely enough, the top of her head.

"Uh...Kitsune?" She blinked at the strange expression he was wearing.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because," he gulped, "not...everything...is back to normal."

Magician's Note: Yahoo! Only an epilogue left now! I'm too dam tired to write that now, so I'll do it tomorrow. Most of the mystery has been figured out now, and I hope nobody is disappointed. If you are, I apologize and ask that you don't send Death Chickens after me. Chickens are scary.


	8. Epilogue, Which ties up a few loose ends...

Magician's Note and Disclaimer: Here we are, ladies and gents—the end of the line! I've had a lot of fun writing this, and I'd like to give a big thanks to everybody who read and reviewed for me during the process. Special thanks to Akal-Saris and AJ Talon, who I've gotten to be buddies with, and who also write really nice stories of their own. As soon as you finish reading this, go read everything they've written too, okay? Peace!

**Two Down and Three to the Left: Epilogue**

**                              A Love Hina Conclusion by MagicianXV**

It was really a remarkable thing, Keitaro reflected, that bad experiences could seem like merely bad dreams only a few days after they had passed. 

Life, he thought, smiling contentedly, had a way of taking a deep breath and saying, "All right, people, let's give this another shot, and let's _try to get it right this time." More often than not, the next try was better, and he certainly felt that way now. Sitting beside the hot spring and eating ice cream was as good a way as any to recover from trauma—he was seriously considering trying to get it patented as a form of legitimate therapy. He grinned at this prospect until a rubber ducky hit him in the side of the head._

"I don't like that smile," said Naru scowling. "I know you're thinking something perverted, so just clean your head out right now, okay?"

"I was _not thinking anything perverted," Keitaro retorted indignantly, tossing the rubber ducky into the bushes. He stuck his tongue out at her and ate a smug spoonful of ice cream. Naru frowned for a moment longer, then relented and turned back to her own dish of double fudge-ripple._

"There's still some stuff I don't understand," she admitted, twirling her spoon between her thumb and forefinger. "Why was it only Shinobu and Kitsune that Geppeddo transformed? What was special about them?"

"Like I said, you know as much as I do," Keitaro answered. He set his bowl down and rolled onto his back. "If anything, you're probably _less confused. That whole day was one big mind job, and you weren't even conscious for it."_

"I might have been," Naru pointed out. "But I still don't have any memories of the time you claim this stuff happened in, and neither do Su, or Sara, or even Mutsumi. Although she could have just forgotten about it..."

"She'd have remembered _something," Keitaro insisted. "It was a memorable day, believe me."_

"It's just hard to believe. None of us were there to see it for ourselves," Naru sighed. "I mean, I know you and Shinobu and Kitsune were there, and the two of them are definite proof that something extremely weird did happen, but you have to admit that it's a wild story."

"You're forgetting about _him," Keitaro added. He gestured over his shoulder, not bothering to look back himself; he knew what was there quite well already. _

About twenty feet away, on the other side of the hot spring, Garou-sama lay sprawled out in the sun, snoring gently. If either of the college students had approached him they would have noticed a distinct smell of ozone, as if a storm was brewing, but experience had taught them that interrupting a sleeping hurricane's nap was a foolhardy action.

"You do have a point," Naru murmured. They fell silent and watched the wolf's gigantic flanks rise and fall as he breathed, his black fur rippling gently. A faint rustle came from the house, and they both turned to see Haruka approaching. She bore a small brown book, bound in worn leather, cracked along the spine.

"I think this may be what we're looking for," she said, sitting down beside Keitaro. She opened the book and Naru scooted closer, leaning over to get a better view. "It fits into the right timeframe for Keisuke to have been living here, and there are some pictures that raised a few...well...see for yourselves." She handed the book to Keitaro, and he flipped slowly through the yellowed pages.

The pictures were terribly faded, but even so, he could make out the images well enough. They were nothing remarkable—people, probably old and gray by now (if they were still alive), smiling and waving at the camera. There were shots of Hinata House, clearly before Grandma Hina had renovated it, and one of the dilapidated annex behind the main building. It looked new here though, and Keitaro thought it must have been a photograph of when the annex had first been built.

"This is neat stuff, Aunt Haruka," Keitaro said, looking up, "but what does it have to do with Geppeddo and Moe-chan?" Haruka lit a cigarette and puffed complacently on it.

"Turn the page again." Keitaro obediently flipped to the next picture, but he went no further. Naru leaned closer, her eyes widening.

"Okay..." she said slowly, running a hand through her long hair. "Please tell me that isn't what I think it is." Keitaro shook his head, staring at the picture in shock.

"I wish I could, but...that's definitely him. The question is, what is he doing at Hinata house...a hundred years ago?" The picture was worth easily more than a thousand words. It featured three people, seated under a tree and locked in frozen smiles. Two of the people Keitaro had seen before—they were his great-grandfather, Keisuke Urashima, and Moe-chan, the strange automaton that had been tucked away in the lower levels of Hinata House. The third person, however, was someone he hadn't expected to see ever again, let alone in a photograph.

It was Geppeddo.

"I don't understand," Naru was protesting. Keitaro barely registered her voice; his head was spinning faster than it ever had in the basement of the police station. "You said he was an old man when you met him, right Keitaro? He looks pretty damn old in this picture already, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Keitaro muttered, reeling. "I don't understand either. Unless..." He looked up from the book and started to set it in his lap, then reconsidered and shoved it aside. "Tell me if this sounds too crazy: for whatever reason, Geppeddo came to Hinata almost a century ago, and he brought Moe-chan with him. He met my great-grandfather and, since Hinata House would have been a hotel at the time, he stayed here for a while. When it was time to leave, Keisuke didn't want Geppeddo to take Moe-chan away, so he...well, stole her, I guess." He looked back and forth between the two women. Haruka blew a pensive smoke ring.

"That does sound pretty crazy," Naru confirmed. "But not any crazier than having a hurricane sleeping by your hot spring."

"I don't think we'll ever know what that old man wanted," Haruka said coolly, smushing her cigarette out in an ashtray. "Not when he was here the first time around."

"He just came back for Moe-chan this time," Keitaro said. "He did say that things were back the way they should be. I guess Moe-chan was all he really cared about."

The three of them fell into reflective silence. Keitaro scraped up the last of his ice cream and savored the rich flavor, then set the bowl down and lay back again. There were clouds drifting by overhead; no longer heavy, gray storm clouds, but the sort that looked like they could be caught and tucked into a drawer for later. He sighed deeply, and wondered if, wherever they were, Geppeddo and Moe-chan were happy.

It wasn't until the sound of a car door being closed awoke him that Keitaro realized he had dozed off. A quick look around revealed that Haruka and Naru had done the same, and they all sat up in unison. A few moments later, Shinobu and Motoko entered, followed by Kitsune and Seta. They all looked relatively cheerful, but for some odd reason, but Kitsune and Shinobu were wearing large hats.

"Hey, you guys," Naru called, getting to her feet. "How'd it go?"

"Eh...I'm not really sure," Kitsune admitted, grinning sheepishly. "Your doctor was a little out of it, Naru. Somebody knocked his house down during the storm last week, and he's still sorta loopy from the shock." 

"Somebody—what? They _knocked __his __house down?" Kitsune nodded easily and plopped down beside Haruka._

"That's what he said. He got pissed off because someone was having a party or something, and when he called to complain, they sent some freak to knock his house down. He's staying in a hotel until he finds a new one."

"Oh," Naru said, exchanging glances with Keitaro. He frowned, then looked at the clouds again and shrugged.

"At least he's all right," he said. "That's what really matters, isn't it? That he's safe?" Kitsune looked curiously at him, then smiled.

"Yeah, I suppose so. Do you guys mind if I take this hat off? It's killing me."

"I've gotten used to it," Naru laughed. Kitsune rolled her eyes. "Seriously, just go ahead." Kitsune yanked the hat off and tossed it away; poking from under her sandy hair were a pair of tall, red-furred fox's ears.

"The doctor wasn't sure what to make of it," she said, fingering them gently. "He said that since our normal ears are gone, we'd better just leave them alone. I don't know what else he expected us to do, though—cut them off? Right." Shinobu and Motoko joined the group now, and Seta followed a few seconds later. Shinobu also set her hat aside, blushing as she did so. Her dark hair contrasted mildly with the brown cat's ears she now sported.

"It's not so bad," she said softly, watching ripples spread over the surface of the hot spring. "I can hear a lot better than I could before. And the letter I got from school said that they'll arrange to have my lessons and homework mailed to me."

"I still think you should keep going," Kitsune said, elbowing her playfully. "I bet the guys would flip for your new look." Shinobu blushed even more deeply. She muttered something about having to start dinner and quickly excused herself, but neither Naru nor Keitaro could resist watching her go—in addition to the ears, Shinobu also now possessed a long, sleek, tail; it was mostly brown, but the end was tipped in white.

"It _is kind of cute," Naru murmured, grinning. "It sort of fits her, you know?" Kitsune laughed loudly and leapt up._

"I've got her beat, though!" she said boldly. "My tail's way better." There was no arguing that Kitsune also had a tail—a very red, bushy fox-tail, identical to the one she had had as an actual _fox, but much larger. "It's good for dusting furniture too."_

"Do you _ever dust furniture?" Keitaro inquired. Kitsune swished her tail and gave the side of his head a gentle clout._

"Nah. It'd be a waste of glamour. And poor Motoko...she turned into a zombie and didn't even get anything out of it, did you?" Motoko scowled and turned her katana over in her hands.

"If you are referring to ears or a tail, no, I did not. I still have trouble believing I ever became a 'zombie' at all, if you must know."

"All right, we'll call you a basket-case then," Kitsune said amiably. "But you did a great zombie impression, I'll tell you that." Motoko, apparently not in the mood to deal with her friend's teasing, got up and stalked away.

"The doctor said she was fine too, right?" Naru asked, casting a dubious glance at Motoko's retreating back. Kitsune nodded.

"Yep. Healthy as a horse, and twice as likely to kick you in the head."

"It's strange that she doesn't have any memories of that day either," Keitaro said thoughtfully. "She was right with us, but it's like she wasn't even there. Geppeddo really knew how to mess with peoples' heads."

"He was a freaky old fart," Kitsune agreed. "But in a weird way, I hope he shows up again." Keitaro, Naru, and Haruka all looked at her in surprise.

"Why in the world would you wish for a thing like _that?" Keitaro demanded. "Don't you think he did enough damage the first time he was here? I mean, yeah, all the police officers he changed into dogs are back to eating doughnuts, but you and Shinobu look like a couple of cosplayers." _

"Not to mention that we have a wolf-god living in our backyard," Naru added. Kitsune smirked and twitched her ears.

"I just thought if he came back, he might change the rest of you into animals for a while. I'd love to see what you'd all be."

"That's something I hadn't considered," Naru said, blinking. "What _would I be?"_

"Maybe a squirrel?" Keitaro offered. "Then we could call you 'Liddo-chan'."

"Ha ha. Boy, you're a riot." Keitaro grinned.

"I know I am. But hey, what about me?" He looked back and forth between the two girls. "What would I be?"

"I think you'd be a puppy," said Kitsune without hesitation. "Just this cute, totally clumsy little puppy that was always tripping over its own feet."

"So in other words," Naru said, "he wouldn't change at all."

                                                                                                                ******

The day passed as it always did, and after a while, the moon came thundering up from the East. The sun, which was hardly ready to give the moon the comfortable seat, put up a heated argument. The dispute almost came to blows, but at the last second the two agreed that they would trade off in twelve hours so the sun could have another turn. The moon clambered into the sky and settled in for a nice, relaxing nap.

And on Earth, the night came.

Magician's Ending Note: Dear, sweet mother of the monkeys. 

I've actually done it.

I've finished a story.

Sonofabitch.

Heh. Thanks again to everybody who helped me get this done, and don't forget to check out Akal-Saris and AJ Talon's works. I hope you enjoyed my collection of letters, which may have resembled words. Maybe they didn't, but I take no responsibility either way. Be kind to animals, and always remember that the meaning of life is forty-two!

MagicianXV, Master of Chaos


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